RPC on Friday extended the deadline to Jan, 23 for Apollo to make a firm offer or walk away.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said that a deal could be announced as soon as Tuesday.

Private equity has long been attracted to the sector’s reliable cash flow and growing demand from online shopping, with a spate of takeovers by bigger packaging players further spurring their interest.

RPC, which operates in 34 countries, on Monday had a market capitalisation of 2.95 billion pounds ($3.8 billion).

The company said in September that it was in talks on a possible sale to Apollo and U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital, with the deadlines to make a firm offer extended repeatedly since then.

The FTSE mid-cap company ended talks with Bain in December.

RPC declined to comment when contacted by Reuters and Apollo could not be reached for comment outside normal business hours.

($1 = 0.7760 pounds)

Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Samantha Machado in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Zieminski and David Goodman